Don't tell Jimmy Page that. Most of Led Zeppelin I was recorded using his Tele. Add the iconic solo from "Stairway to Heaven" as well. ps. To those who correctly pointed this out before my post, my apologies. I replied to this post from pg.2 before reading the other 8.
I LOVE 7 1/2" radius fretboards, which is why my Fender Strat and old Palomino acoustic continue to be my favorite guitars. It is not easy to find a new guitar any more with a neck like that.
There are a world of sounds in a Tele. Ted Greene played jazz on one. While initially using a stock Tele one of my idols, Clarence White, somehow got a much mellower sound during his early session work and later with the Byrds (while using the bridge PU and before he added Red Rhodes Velvet Hammer PUs). On the far end of a quintessentially "Bakersfield" sound is Don Rich. And as an above poster noted, Jimmy Page got a completely different sound. It is nice though to have different guitars available to me when I want to play differently,
I love all sorts of guitars and discussions like this, but what is not said enough, is that the AMPLIFIER can make more of a difference in the sound than the guitar itself. I would play a $400 guitar and a $1,500 vintage amp any day before the vice versa....
Youre abslulely right. I had a fender bassman and now have a Blackstar HT5. The guitar is the same but the diference is huge. Miss that bassman. No pedals, no effects, no nothing, and had a divine sound.
You can get plenty of twang out of a Tele if that's what you want, but the thing that's most Tele to me is the bite. A Strat etc makes it easy to tame the Fender bite, but you can still accomplish that with the Tele pups and tone knob (and human touch). But heck the Tele is designed to bite! If you don't like that, don't blame the guitar! It's just doing what it's supposed to.
I also responded to those posts. I don't exactly get to speak with Mr. Page, so I can't tell him that his sound was thin when he used a Tele. I would, though, if it came up and I was actually speaking with him. It's just my opinion anyway. I'm not sure why people care so much.
Just curious, did you always know that he used a Tele on those recordings just from hearing them? If yes, you have better ears than I. I must admit that until I read his account of those recordings decades ago, I would have sworn he was using a Les Paul. Regarding a Tele, yes they can be twangy, but I've always felt in the right hands, with the right amplifier, one could convincingly blur the lines between it and a Les Paul. Can't say that about a Strat.
To me, a Tele won't ever sound like a Les Paul unless it has humbuckers in it. Yes, I did know that Page used a Tele on the first Zeppelin album. That excludes You Shook Me which is a Flying V according to him (and you can tell).
The Blackguards are not particularly twangy. I have the 52 reissue which is a very close copy. The bridge pickup has a flat pole alnico 3 magnet with brass saddles. Not all that twangy and it gets very rude if a lot of gain is applied. It sounds distinctly different than my humbucker equipped guitars but no less heavy. The early Teles were different spec and sound different than the later ones with staggered poles and steel saddles.
I originally bought a Jazzmaster because I couldn't afford a Mosrite. No, really. This was about 1976 or so. The '66 I ended up with exhibited the usual bridge/trem issues others have mentioned until I took a chance and strung it up with D'Merle flatwound strings. The gauges on those were pretty ridiculous, so I adapted by threading up the A string where the low E should've been, then going up from there -- basically tossing the low E, then using the rest. Bought a .10 high E and used that on top. How did that work out? Actually, pretty good -- strings didn't jump out of the bridge as much, and the trem was fairly stable. Had to keep an eye on the lowest three strings, as the wrap would eventually wear at a spot and begin to unravel, revealing a skinny core wire. As long as I kept some spares around, I was okay. The tone was very dense with those strings, twangy with a solid bottom, almost Bass VI-ish. Better as a rhythm guitar than as a lead instrument, though it could speak when called upon. Eventually, that guitar and a competition stripe Mustang got traded in on -- a Mosrite. Yeah.
Didn't Brinsley Schwarz play a heavily modded Jazzmaster while he was playing with Graham Parker & The Rumour in the late 70's? It's a bit hard to tell from the clip but the mods make it look like a completely different guitar. Also, there used to be an article that I had found online years ago about that particular instrument, but I can't seem to find it now.
Hmmm...I didn’t say I’m or anybody is incapable of being creative on a Strat...I’d love it if I (or anyone) surprised myself with a new radically creative use of a Strat (and by that I mean truly original, not a retread style, even if it’s well done and enjoyable). I just think it’s been around so long now, that it is very difficult to not do something that’s been done before on a Strat. There’s a lot of territory covered with Strat usage over the decades. There are many times when playing my Strat or on a session that a well tread style that requires a Strat is the exact part for that gig, but almost always I can think that the part I’m coming up with is derivative or heavily influenced by a former Strat style. That’s where my head and hands tend to go. Other models these days tend to open up my brain to other avenues.
I suppose I misinterpreted your post. I can understand what you're saying here. Your mind gets so locked into the typical Strat sounds and style that your fingers just naturally follow suit. I've done it myself. That's when I plug into some wild pedal configuration that takes my sound into the twilight zone of tone. Suddenly I'm playing stuff I never knew could be pulled out of a Strat. The dramatic change in tone forces me to play in a totally different way. And that's a good thing. I've come up with some beautiful (and evil) sounds this way, which I've used to create music that doesn't sound like it was made with a Fender Stratocaster. Yes, sometimes it's hard to think outside the Strat. But it's not impossible.
I'm pretty sure if it can stand up to Thurston's shenanigans, it would do just fine for Dick . Yes, I realize this is a completely different style of music (that some won't even consider to be music), but the fact that he can subject his Jazzy to that kind of abuse and still come right back into the song in tune is a testament to its durability. Yes! I've seen people go down the rabbit hole (even myself at times) of gear minutia, when that time would be better spent learning the instrument, developing your style and writing some damn music. It's nice to have a couple guitars in your arsenal, just for variety's sake, but most of the time it's not going to make a pivotal difference. Not that you would listen to two recordings and not be able to tell the difference, but if you've got a good song, The exception to that, I would say (aside from 12 strings, baritones, etc.) is the tremolo. A Jazzmaster/Jaguar (floating) trem sounds and functions drastically different from a Strat. For divebomb or screaming oscillation, a Strat trem has it hands down over the floating trem. For subtle, "dreamy" type of sounds, the floating trem is better suited (not that it couldn't be done on a Strat).
I had a candy apple blue Mosrite Ventures Model that I bought used in 1969 for $225. When I tried to sell it five years later, I couldn't give it away. I ended up trading it for a Yamaha acoustic 12-string at a pawn shop. Now, those original Mosrites are worth thousands, especially in Japan. Can't say I liked the guitar, other than it's very cool looks. It was heavy, with a thin neck and very low frets. Easy to play, but not much sustain. Those guitars never really caught on, except for a few famous players like Joe Maphis, Erik Brann (Iron Butterfly), and, of course, Johnny Ramone.
Keith Richards in 1987 in Guitar World magazine said something along the lines of “Give me a Gretsch Country Gentleman or a Japanese Strat copy and in 10 minutes I’ll make it sound like me.”
Rowland S. Howard of the Birthday Party, These Immortal Souls, etc - used a Jaguar played through a Fender Twin Reverb. It was part of his distinctive sound for sure.
I seriously doubt it would take him that long.....maybe if he includes removing the Low E string and retuning to Open G.
